Journal of a Sex Change Passage through Trinidad [Hardcover]

Journal of a Sex Change is an intimate look at the compelling journey from male to female. Griggs provides us with an inside perspective on one of the most private and complicated transformations possible. She recounts her sex change process in compelling detail, from the emotional decision to pursue the surgery, to the procedure itself, to the long and painful recovery process. How did Griggs' decision affect personal relationships, family life and work? What was it like in the first few months after the operation? What is it like for her now to experience the world as a transformed woman? Thoughtful and courageous, Griggs chronicles a journey that not only changed her physiology, but her life.Updated with a new foreword by Judith Halberstam, Griggs' book was originally published as Passage through Trinidad in 1996. Pioneering, it has become a classic firsthand account of the experience of sex reassignment.

Griggs is a startlingly accurate and self-aware diarist and her bold and truthful narrative forces the reader to turn her gaze away from the supposed oddity of the transsexual form and towards the uncertainty of all gendered embodiments. Judith Halberstam, UC San Diego and author of Female Masculinities

Claudine Griggs provides the complete account of her own experience, from the commitment to having surgery, through every step at the Trinidad hospital, to the physical and emotional problems of recovery and readjustment. Her book is compelling reading, both as a narrative and for its emotional and psychological insights. It is good to have it back in print. Robert E. Morsberger and Katharine M. Morsberger

Decision * Arrival * Hospital * Pain * Routine * Visitors * Progress * Freedom * Anticipation * Release * West * Home * Aftermath

Claudine Griggs is a Visiting Lecturer at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Rhode Island College (USA).